


Wrong Number

by mattzerella_sticks



Series: Season 15 Inspired [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angry Castiel (Supernatural), Angry Dean Winchester, Castiel and Dean Winchester Being Idiots, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Dean Winchester Needs to Use Actual Words, Depressed Dean Winchester, Domestic Disputes, Emotionally Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Heartbroken Castiel (Supernatural), Heartbroken Dean Winchester, Jealousy, M/M, Post-Break Up, Season/Series 15, Texting, Worried Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21568618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattzerella_sticks/pseuds/mattzerella_sticks
Summary: Cas finally checks his messages. And sends a few of his own. Dean responds back, sinking to Cas's level if that's how he wants it.If that's how he wants their relationship to be now. Better than being forgotten as he moves on. Grateful to still be in his thoughts, even if they are tainted by the venom of anger. Its poison leaking through every message and wearing through what's left of Dean's heart.What happens when there's nothing left? When he runs out and is left empty?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Season 15 Inspired [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1517543
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128





	Wrong Number

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this post by super-sootica on tumblr linked below! It evolved into its own thread, but I loved the idea and wanted to put my own spin on it so... :D 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> post link here: https://mattzerella-sticks.tumblr.com/post/189305384711/bluestar86-tinkdw-bluefirecas

_I know it might seem like Dean’s being ungrateful, it’s just that he lacks the ability to comprehend the feelings of others. Especially those of the people closest to them. - Cas, 3:21 a.m., 11/18_

_Apologies. That was meant for someone else. - Cas, 4:45 a.m., 11/18_

Dean glowers at his phone, reading the last two messages from Cas over and over again. They killed any sort of productiveness that lived within him. Even if all he planned on doing was shuffling to the kitchen, grabbing a box of Pop-Tarts, and swinging back. Now there’s nowhere Dean would rather be than his bed.

Wrapped in his blanket, with only his phone for company. Shitty company.

“Who the hell would he send this kind of message to,” Deah mumbles, “He only has three people on his contact list.”

Sam comes to mind. Maybe he complained to Cas after the umpteenth time Dean ignored research in favor of bingeing the lastet Scooby-Doo series. In terms of animation, it wasn’t too impressive. But he never laughed so hard at a cartoon in his life. Its take on the characters fresh and their chemistry intoxicating enough to forget about his worries. Until they leave vague messages on his phone that weren’t intended for him but for his brother.

In the next breath Dean crosses Sam’s name off the suspect list. He wouldn’t cry to Cas with Eileen here.

Dean cycles through the very short line-up of Cas’s inner circle and comes to the conclusion that makes the most sense.

Cas texted him in a way that robbed him of any consequence. Invented a false conversation, gave himself reason to text Dean and twist the knife in his heart deeper.

He already bled for far too long. Two hours wasted letting Cas’s messages darken the already stormy clouds thundering in his heart. Dean shifts around to face the empty side of his bed, lays his phone on the pillow there and stares at it. Debates on what to do next.

For once ignorance was the healthiest choice. Walking away from the thread and moving on with his day like the text never came. Feigning surprise in case Cas worked up the courage to ask after his response. 

Except Dean cannot simply move on. If Dean could, then he wouldn’t be holed up in his room. He wouldn’t be wearing his pajamas for the fifth day in a row. He wouldn’t spend the seconds between episodes wondering if a forty-year crisis was invented for the amusement of an omnipotent voyeur; for the benefit of his most resurrected son.

So he chooses the comforting shade of a low road. Types a quick message and hit send before he rethinks it. Then hides his phone under his pillow. Dean tips over onto his back and stares at the ceiling. Imagines Cas’s face when he reads his text. Blue eyes shifting like the tides. From surprise, to sadness, and finally anger.

An anger both like and unlike Dean's. Because while there are many deserving candidates who deserve the full fury of his ire, only one can have it. The king on the top of the mountain, who stands tall above the rest and ruins his life near-constantly, is the man Dean spends all his time with. Who he sees in every reflection. Who Cas meant to send that text to.

He slips into restless slumber.

_Fuck you. - Dean, 10:14 a.m., 11/18_

* * *

_Thanks for the assistance the other day Jonathan. During and after the case… I wish you could have stayed after. Waking up alone sux. - 4:57 p.m., 12/1_

“Dean?”

He glances up from his phone, Sam staring at him with his brows drawn in worry. They sat in the library, discussing lore dug up with the faintest mention of God. Searching for ways to find him or, more importantly, overpower him. Not his choice, but Sam wrangled him with the promise of snacks. Only he lied.

“An apple is a snack, Dean.”

“It’s an ingredient,” he said, chomping on one of the pieces Sam cut for him. “Used for making _pies_.” Wet crumbs sprayed across the table and landed on a yellowed page from some dusty tome.

Sam glared, then, knocking the bits off. Dean attempted an innocent smile, with cheeks stuffed full of apple mush.

The apple had long been eaten, and they were wrapped in a conversation about the legitimacy of a jug with the power to contain the essence of a god. Whether it could work against _the_ God. His brother made a plaintive case about how with so few options they shouldn’t sweep any idea off the table. In the middle of it, Dean’s phone buzzed with a message. On instinct he reached for it and read.

He doesn’t know how long he spent staring at it until Sam broke through the ringing in his ears. “Yeah?”

“Who was it?” After a beat of silence, Dean’s lips glued tight, he tried again. “Was it Cas?”

Dean swallows around the pile threatening to push past the dam in his throat. “Yeah,” he says, coughing, “Yeah. He’s… checking in. Y’know, keeping us up to date on where he is.”

“Which is…?”

“He’s hunting,” he tells Sam, fiddling with the book in front of him. Scowling, his fingers squeeze and jerk pages too quickly. “Joined up with a partner this time around… he was glad someone was there to have his _back_.”

Sam sighs, “He does know we’d be there if we could… this is important, but if he called -”

“Don’t matter,” Dean growls, grip tight on the book, “Seems like he’s found exactly what he needed.”

“That doesn’t sound like your jealous _at all_ …”

“I’m not jealous, Sammy.”

“Of course you're not. Just because some random guy's taken your -”

_Rriipp!!_

“Dude!” Sam snatches the book away from him, “What the hell?”

Dean gapes at the crumbling paper in his hand, torn without him realizing. The faded ink creases and bends in his hands. Never to be the same, even if they smooth it against the table. Scars from Dean’s anger marring the surface. “I… what?”

“You’re lucky this wasn’t anything important,” his brother sighs, running a finger against the spine to make sure Dean didn’t unbind the entire book. Tested the remaining pages to ensure there was no more damage. “Next time be more careful.”

“Sorry,” he chokes out, “I’m… I’m sorry, I… I don’t know -”

“I was just kidding,” Sam says, frowning. That special way in which Dean feels smaller than a bug under a microscope. “Seriously, you’re getting worked up over nothing.”

Nothing. Sam didn’t know how _not_ nothing Cas’s text was. He reads it again, cautious not to blink. In case the tears threatening to spill over, do. However the longer he forces himself to look, the more Sam’s words bounce in his head. Nothing. Was it really nothing?

His thumb brushes across the screen and shows him the three square conversation from weeks ago. Soon enough Dean connects the strings between that and Cas’s last message. The despair blossoming inside combusts into an ashy anger.

“You’re right Sam,” he huffs, firing an arrow over the phone at him, “it’s nothing.”

“You sure -”

“ _Sam_ ,” he sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face, “Drop it, okay?”

Stubborn curiosity bubbles behind Sam’s hard gaze, and Dean wonders if he’ll end the day hiding in his room again. Only his brother forfeits, showing Dean a diagram of the jug and explaining how they might trap Chuck inside it.

When he ducks away to grab his tablet, Dean presses send and abandons the library for his bed.

_Jonathan, if he exists. Big FAT if. Probably left because u sucked, not the good way. I always had a feeling you’d be a rotten lay. Glad I’ll never have to find out. - Dean, 5:23 p.m., 12/1_

* * *

_Look who I ran into. He apologized for leaving and wanted to make it up to me. Glad to know Jonathan’s considerate. remorseful. caring. - Cas, 9:27 p.m., 12/4_

This time there’s a picture. Cas and another man sitting at a bar, their cheeks pressed close in friendly intimacy. Dean glares at the other man, a whirlwind of criticisms spawning in seconds.

Did Cas really like guys with shaggy cuts? With square jaws that made their faces seem ready for delivery? Broad shoulders hidden under tight-fitting polos? And what kind of hunter wore polos? Was plaid not good enough anymore? Too soft, warm, and familiar? _Jonathan_ hardly seemed like the type of guy who could take down a vampire in a haunted house let alone a true bloodsucker.

“You could’ve at least tried, Cas,” he mumbles, sipping on his beer. Dean places it next to the three other empties lining the kitchen floor. Close to the stereo playing a mix of songs that never made it into the hands of who they were meant to be in.

He draws his knees in, leaning his forehead against them and staring at his phone through the space in his legs. Dean’s thumb rests on Cas’s chest. Remembers a time when it rested freely there without the barrier of technology. In his imagination, warmth pricks at the skin there.

Dean chuckles, rocking from side to side. “This is sad!” In his hazy mind, Dean debates which looked more pathetic - Cas asking a total stranger for a selfie to mess with Dean or Dean falling completely into the trap. He chooses the latter when he catches sight of his warped figure in the chrome cabinets, red-rimmed eyes on horrid display.

Standing on shaky legs, Dean begins typing up a text for Cas. _How much did he cost you?_ His finger hovers over send, but it never lands. Instead Dean wipes the word box clean and begins again. _Guys clearly got no taste, especially if he’s into you_. That hits too close to home, and Dean starts over once more.

He cycles through a bunch of different messages. _Don’t make any more mistakes. What did Jonathan do to come across your ugly mug again? Knowing your luck he’ll end up killing you before the night’s through. Why are we doing this to each other? I hate that we’re fighting. I’m sorry. Please come home. I miss you._

Tears drip onto his phone, messing with the touch screen. Dean gulps a deep breath in and tamps down the sobs quaking in his chest. He tries to draw from the endless pool of frustration, except it’s finally empty.

With nothing left but fumes coursing through his blood, Dean writes his last wish for Cas. Sends it, leaves his phone face down on the island, and trudges off to bed.

In the late afternoon when he returns, Dean sees there are no new messages. And he accepts it.

_I hope you’re happy, Cas - Dean, 1:15 a.m., 12/5_

**Author's Note:**

> Short, sweet, and to the point like a beautiful, hand-crafted dagger, right?
> 
> Let me know what you thought when this pierced your heart? Drop a kudos & comment below!


End file.
